When querying an Oracle database using the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Oracle (MSDAORA) and the ODBC .NET Framework Data Provider, using the LIKE clause to query values in fixed-length fields might not return all expected matches. The reason is that when Oracle matches values for fixed-length fields in a LIKE clause, it matches the entire length of the string, including any padding trailing spaces. For example, if a table in an Oracle database contains a field named "Field1" that is defined as char(3), and you enter the value "a" into a row of that table, the following code will not return the row.

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This is because Oracle stores the column value as "a " (padding "a", with trailing spaces, to the fixed field length of 3), which Oracle does not treat as a match for the parameter value of "a" in the case of a LIKE comparison of fixed-length fields.

To resolve this problem, append a percentage ("%") wildcard character to the parameter value ("a%"), or use an SQL = comparison instead.

The following example creates multiple instances of OdbcParameter through the OdbcParameterCollection within the OdbcDataAdapter. These parameters are used to select data from the data source and place the data in the DataSet. This example assumes that a DataSet and an OdbcDataAdapter have already been created by using the appropriate schema, commands, and connection.